The common point of view, though, during this meeting, was that there was nothing new :

Fabius : "our proposal still stands, but the decision is Brazilian."

However, Patriota reveals that our MoD, Jean-Yves le Drian, will meet Celso Amorin in Brazil. The purchase of 36 fighter is expected to be one of the topics, though not the only one. Exame.com indicates that this meeting will happen in November.

"There have been discussions between German and Indian officials and
I can say that this is not a closed book yet,'' said Schockenoff, a
close aide of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is in India on a four-day visit.
"As far as I know, there is not yet a commercial order committed by the
Indian government. The Eurofighter manufacturers are working again on
the offer and this is a subject of negotiations between the European
consortium and the Indian government,'' he added.

Interestingly, Indian officials estimated it was time to remember everybody that, according to MoD source, actually :

"We are not talking to anyone except Dassault Aviation whose Rafale
aircraft has been selected as the lowest bidder in the multi-billion
dollar contract".

Another article, published in L'Usine Nouvelle, indicated that discussions are really going on, and well, though this may last for long. The article states that due to the high technological complexity of some of the Rafale's components, the aircraft should remain mainly built in France, for more than 50 percent of the production.

Another reputed source told idrw.org that “There has been no backdoor
level talks going on with any losing competitor ” and went on to remind
us that Russian offer of Mig-35 had failed in Technical evaluation level
and failed miserably to be even considered as an option if talks
with Dassault fails for any reason. next choice will be European EADS
( Eurofighter ) but we are not talking to them on this matter yet .

Thursday, August 16, 2012

On the 13th, two Rafale accompanied by a Sukhoi flew over the Kazelski airfield so as to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Normandie-Niemen, as we could learn from the Armée de l'Air twits.
Hopefully, we will see pictures of this soon !!!

Actuality has slowed down a bit during summer, however, we learnt at least two things about export prospects :

The sad one : Brazil postponed his decision.
According to Mr Amorin (MoD), Brazil has no favorite, and it's not about which aircraft they will choose, but when. Economic growth, as observed for the first trimester, is too low to allow the country to purchase any aircraft. When conditions will improve, they will re-examine the different offers.

The happy one : India has found no irregularity in the selection process, discussions are going on, and quite well.http://idrw.org/

On the Indo-French Rafale deal, Browne said that the bilateral
negotiation process is now half-way through and is expected to pick up
later this month. “I have flown the aircraft and we all are satisfied
and happy with the aircraft. We hope the deal will be completed by the
end of the financial year.”